


More Than Letters

by mockingjayne



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:27:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25251601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mockingjayne/pseuds/mockingjayne
Summary: Claire can't think of anything more absurd than confessing her feelings to Jamie, her best friend, especially when she's convinced someone else could do it better.  AU
Relationships: Claire Beauchamp & Jamie Fraser, Claire Beauchamp/Jamie Fraser
Comments: 75
Kudos: 147





	More Than Letters

“I knew it! I knew it was the blonde wife,” Claire triumphantly chants from the couch, pointing her finger at the television of the latest progamme that her and Jamie have decided to binge watch.

“I dinna ken how you do that,” he scoffs, slowly removing her legs from his lap, placing them gently onto the couch, shaking his head in disbelief as he gets up.

“It was obvious,” Claire states, folding her legs up underneath her. “I’d suspected her from the first series,” she touts with a raise of her brow.

“I like to give the benefit of the doubt to people,” he says with a grin, and she shakes her head. 

“No, the ones who appear nice are always the guiltiest,” she says with a mischievous quirk of her mouth.

Jamie makes his way to the kitchen, and Claire’s eyes track his every move, the way the muscles of his legs contract with every step, his sweatpants showing the outline of his physique, as her eyes track upward, the red curls he’d cut short nearly bouncing with each step. He turns to wink at her before grabbing a glass and filling it with water.

“So cynical,” he says, taking a drink, and she swears her heart drops with his Adam’s apple every gulp he takes.

“Trust no one, my friend,” she warns, biting her lip and hoping that he doesn’t notice the way she holds her breath as she waits for his reply.

His brow rises, and he seems to be thinking, before walking back to her, the blue of his eyes settling onto her own, as if violet colliding in the wind. She can feel the heat rise in her as Jamie nears closer until he’s practically hovering over her.

“Even you?” He asks, the question coming out like petals tickling her skin, familiar yet strangely fleeting, sending a shiver down her spine, until she finds her long leg sticking out, resting her foot on his stomach, the trace of his muscle evident against her toes, even through his shirt.

He leans in further, despite her foot keeping their distance, yet simultaneously allowing her to touch him.

“I don’t know, you tell me,” she says with a bite of her lip, her blue eyes begging for him to get a clue and confess his feelings for her.

He squints at her, her hand resisting the urge to trace the crinkles in the corners of his eyes.

“I can always count on ye, Sassenach,” he says with a light hearted air to his tone. “Yer my best mate,” his rationale not exactly what she wanted to hear, and he teasingly twists her toes until she pulls them back, a slight nod at the thought of never being able to break from the friend zone.

“You’re bloody right you can,” she shoots back, trying to break the awkward tension she feels, but she’s pretty sure it’s just one sided, like everything else with them, her hopes plummeting to the bottom of her stomach, while he puts on his shoes, seemingly ignoring the disheartened look painting her face.

“I’ve gotta go,” he says, heading for the door, and she follows behind him, discarding the blanket they’d been resting beneath, her thigh having rubbed against his sweatpants during the episode, and the slight jump she swore she felt against him, resting in the recess of her mind, jumpstarting her heart against the electric current that seems to run between them whenever they’re together.

“I’ll see you later this week?” She asks, and hopes that she sounds casual enough, like two friends, not like one was desperately in love with the other, while he had absolutely no idea she even existed in that capacity.

“Aye, as soon as ye have a day off, let me know,” he says with a quick kiss to her cheek, and she stills her head, urging herself not to turn her head and plant her lips on the soft, somehow always pink, lips that have rested upon her skin.

“Mhmm,” she mumbles, unable to get a coherent thought out otherwise, collapsing against the door as she shuts it, feeling like every time they parted she was saying goodbye to the possibility of greatness, instead relishing herself to the inevitable.

That she was nothing more than a friend. 

A great one, she argues with herself. But albeit, still a friend. She was the book someone casually picked up from time and time, and although the plot was good, the writing exceptional, you never quite got around to finishing the story. It was just left discarded on the nightstand, an old stand by that you assumed would always be around to finish, so you felt no rush, no need to claim its importance.

She’s barely made it back to the couch when she hears her phone ring. Plopping down with a huff, her shirt twisting against the back of the pillow, pulling tightly against her.

“Hello?”

“He just left didn’t he?” She hears, and her head automatically looks around, as if she’s being watched.

“How do you know?” The skepticism heard in her timbre of her voice.

“Ye always have this dejected tone when he’s just been around,” her friend Gillian throws out, and as much as she wants to deny her statement, she knows it’s true.

“I like hanging out with him, so…” She tries to reason, but she knows her friend hears right through the lie.

“Just tell the guy ye love him already, and please get some,” she practically begs through the phone.

“I do not—“ but she can’t even finish swallowing the lie, its taste so acerbic on her tongue she refuses to admit as much. “He doesn’t like me like that,” she argues. “He can do better,” she finally admits with a whisper. “Like Laoghaire…” she throws out. The blonde was a coworker of Jamie’s. Claire had met her a handful of times when she’d been invited to the pub or at a work event when Jamie had brought Claire along. She seemed nice enough, although there was always a watchful eye whenever she interacted with Jamie, as the blonde was also very much in love with him, that much Claire knew. As apparently, they all were.

“Bitch, I wish ye could see the way that man looks at ye, it’s unhealthy,” and Claire can feel her rolling her eyes through the phone. “Any guy would be lucky to have ye, including Jamie, and if he prefers _that wh—_

“Gillian…” Claire warns.

“If he prefers… _that_ , over you, then ye’ve dodged a bullet,” the sincere comments only coming out when Claire was particularly down on herself. But taking into account how her previous boyfriend, Frank, had largely ignored for the entirety of their relationship, it was difficult to see herself as anything but invisible when her best friend refused to see her as nothing but the woman who’d tripped her way into his existence.

“I don’t want just any guy,” she murmurs, and she can hear Gillian’s laugh echoing through the phone into her living space.

“I ken just fine, you want Mr. Tie-Me-Up-Now,” she giggles.

“Is there a reason you’re calling me?” Claire interrupts, her finger coming to her mouth, bitting at the skin of her thumb.

“All I’m saying is that ye should tell him.”

The room goes silent, Claire unsure how she should answer, the weight of the statement sitting on her chest.

“What if he doesn’t want me?” Her voice nearly disappearing by the end of the question. 

Her friendship with Jamie had begun a few years before. She’d stumbled into him, literally, in the outside nursery, tripping on a hose, and landing squarely on his chest. He’d steadied her with his hands, as she looked up to get lost in the depth of blue that threatened to drown her right there and then in the soil of her clumsiness.

“Sorry, sorry,” she profusely made her apologies, only to find him grinning down at her, a smudge of dirt having made its way to her face in her haste to try to catch herself, the various plants she’d been holding splattering to the floor.

“Are ye alright?” He’d asked, and she’s stared helplessly up at the man that had caught her.

“Mhmm,” she mumbled, and he’d laughed.

That was the moment she knew she was a goner.

They’d chatted for a bit, quickly finding out that they lived on the same block, Jamie having recalled the display of flowers she had in her garden, often stopping to admire the bloom.

“I try,” she’d modestly admitted, and he’d sheepishly confessed with a hand to the back of his neck that he had something of a curse upon him when it came to getting plants to grow, in the sense that all of them seemed to die under his supervision.

She’d tried not to laugh, but a blush formed on his neck as a giggle escaped her mouth.

“Ye laugh, but it’s true, I canna seem to get anything to grow,” his grin climbed his face in a way that turned the heat up on that humid spiring day.

“So what are you doing here?” She’d found herself asking, her hand digging into the pockets of shorts, the curls on her neck turning into spirals at the heat of the day.

“Succulents,” he’d proudly confessed holding up the plant he’d been assured was unlikely to die under his care.

“Cute,” she’d chided, pushing the curls from her face, smudging more dirt on her forehead.

He’d leaned in closer, and she could feel the warmth from his body reaching out to her, begging to engulf her in its flame. His hand had reached out, pushing the tendril of hair away from her skin, and with his thumb, he’d softly brushed the stray soil off of her.

“Uhh, thanks,” she’d choked out, her hands buried so deeply in her pockets, her skin tingled with the feel of his hands having whispered against her.

“See ye around,” he’d said, leaving her standing there among the flowers, mess of a person, with no chance of seeing this man again.

Until she did. 

What she had thought was a chance encounter with an unfortunate hose had ended up turning into a friendship, in which she’d found him cuddled into her couch most nights after work, binge watching television, ordering take out, with updates on his poor suffering succulent that she’d teasingly started referring to as “Stubby.”

“He’s thriving,” Jamie would claim, but she had a feeling he was floundering, much like she felt she was whenever he was in her presence.

“Claire. Claire!” Her phone calling her back to reality.

“I’m here,” she says, shaking herself from reverie.

“I said, maybe ye should text him how you feel if you canna say it to his face, coward,” she teases.

“And say what? Hey, I’m in love with you? I don’t think so,” Her head shakes at the idea, as well as her nerves. 

“If we’re a fan of brevity,” she chirps. “Or did ye not tell me once that yer parents used to write each other love letters…maybe put that flowery writing to use…”

She can hear the words echo in her mind as she sits down with a glass of whisky, Jamie’s influence, abandoning her usual gin and soda for something a bit stronger.

Opening up her laptop, the glow hits her face, casting a light on the stack of letters she holds. They’re twined together with string, a pressed forget-me-not lays a top the words her parents had written to each other when they were separated at different universities. She’d read them countless times, tracing over the ink of her mother’s curly script, and the slanted lines of her father’s letters. They’d spilled their hearts on those pages, keeping every last one of them, until they were reunited, vowing to never leave the other again, keeping that promise even in leaving this earth together.

Her eyes well up at the thought, and she wipes away the tears that threaten to fall.

She quickly checks her work email, her thumbnail making its way to her mouth. Gillian’s words ruminate in her head, contemplating actually admitting her feelings to Jamie. The idea seems insane to her. She knows he has no interest, he would’ve made a move otherwise, but then she feels his fingers against her skin, the gentle way they’d danced across her temple, steadied her in his arms, the way he’d show up with the exact food she’d been craving all week, or how he’d text her good morning, or the habitual way his arm would come around her shoulders, pulling her in closer when they walked, or the jump she felt at the contact of her leg against his own…

her hand coming out to touch the petal of a wildflower, one of many that sit upon her table in various glasses, appearing as if by magic, just when one has died, each and every one of them pressed into the books that line her shelves, her new companions and their vibrant hues brightening her day almost as much as when she thought of the man who put them there…

and she creates a new, anonymous account.

With a sigh, her fingers fly across the keyboard, words seeming to sprout from her thoughts, blossoming into everything she’d ever wanted to say. The minutes tick by, until she feels that she must surrender to the exhaustion casting its shadow over her in the wake of adrenaline draining.

Claire laughs at the absurdity, the idea of actually confessing her feelings however anonymously was a good exercise, but certainly not something that she would intentionally send off to be judged, ultimately met with rejection and the loss of a friend. She had way too much to lose. They weren’t like her parents, their souls weren’t intwined, it was just her, her wildflower heart, reaching for the sun, and finding the rain.

Clicking out of the email, she shuts her laptop, dragging her feet into bed, the sheets enveloping her in crisp coolness, longing for the warmth of the man she had been yearning for, but never felt quite in reach of.

xxxxxx

_-Pizza._

She’d gotten his text just as she was leaving the nursey. It had been long a day of fulfilling orders, and if she’d had any energy left, she’d have sprinted out the doors, but instead she slowly made her way to the car, her phone lighting up with Jamie’s name and his weekly guess that was always accurate.

_-You think you know me sooooo well._

She teases, wondering if he was capable of knowing what she really wanted or if the mere suggestion of him willing to eat whatever she wanted each and every week was enough to have her agreeing because she didn’t want him to stop in his quest to please her.

_-I live rent free in that head of yours._

And fuck if that wasn’t accurate.

_-What if I said I was craving chips?_

_-I guess we’ll be putting chips on our pizza._

The snort that comes from her nose has her blushing alone in her vehicle, a smile plastered to her face all the way home.

Jamie’s already inside by the time she gets home, sprawled out on the couch, having exchanged keys some time ago. He’s made himself at home, pizza box resting on the coffee table, two beers just waiting for her to join him.

Tossing her shoes off, she’s sure some soil still clings to hers as she plops down next to him, her head resting on the back of the couch, sinking into the down.

“Rough day?” She hears, a stray curl being tucked behind her ear.

“Eh,” she mutters with a sigh, sitting up and reaching for the pizza box. “You?” She asks, opening the box to find a pile of chips resting in the middle.

“You’re ridiculous, you know that, right?” She says with a smile, grabbing a chip and shoving it into her mouth, looking over to find her smile mirrored back to her, reaching for his beer.

“My day was pretty wild, actually,” he says with a drink.

“Oh yeah? What exactly does a ‘wild’ day in the whisky business look like?” Claire asks with a smirk, going in for a slice of pineapple pizza, and she can’t help but read way too much into the fact that he orders it that way even though she knows he thinks it’s sacrilege to put the yellow fruit on pizza.

“It wasna so much work that was wild, but I received this email…” Claire nods as she chews. “Apparently, I have a secret admirer.”

The sound of Claire’s choking cough the only reaction she can muster.


End file.
